


might press a star

by mockturtletale



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Office, First Kiss, M/M, Office AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 16:12:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4355660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockturtletale/pseuds/mockturtletale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael sees now that he was wrong to think of this boy as an angel of any kind, because there is nothing holy about the things Michael wants to do to that body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	might press a star

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: 
> 
>  
> 
> _Summary: Michael and Luke take the same elevator to work every day. Things progress from there._
> 
>  
> 
> Title from a Dorothy Parker poem.

The weight of Monday Morning hangs heavy and loud in the lift and it’s so packed that the mere presence of so many other bodies in Michael’s immediate space is coaxing his bad mood into something more like a simmering murderous rage. 

Michael hates this place. 

He hates his job, hates his coworkers, hates the dress code rules that limit him to one facial piercing at a time. He hates the doom and gloom of working a nine to five job in a building so tall and so _grey_ that Michael thinks of it like a rain cloud given edges; the headache pressure of a thunderstorm made solid enough to step into. 

Everything is clean, straight lines and dull, muted shades of colours that would put Michael to sleep in their brightest, wildest forms. 

Looking down at his own black jeans and black button down shirt, MIchael doesn’t find it hard to draw distinction between himself and the other bodies that will inevitably step off the elevator in their droves before it reaches his floor; leaving him alone to luxuriate in his re-claimed personal space. 

Michael doesn’t know what it is that the rest of these people do, because Michael has put all of no thought or research into what goes on on the floors below his own. 

Ratty red chucks make Michael’s feet stand out in the sea of polished, always-newly-shined black. 

Though no one else on the lift would dare crease their sleeves by folding them up over their forearms, Michael can tell from experience that none of these people would be able to reveal ink, like he can, like he does even when it’s 7am and so cold he has goosebumps, because maybe Michael doesn’t find it hard to draw distinction between himself and those around him now, but he very often finds it necessary. 

It has so long since become routine for Michael to reassuringly note himself as Other, as Not Like Everyone Else, that this morning it’s a fleeting registered truth. 

‘One of these things is not like the others,’ he thinks, smiling a little bit when only the lid of his coffee cup can see it. 

And then the sea of dark, boring bodies around him parts in such a way to reveal something that Michael was not expecting, marking the first real unexpected development of the day. The month, maybe. 

It’s a slice of gold, a streak of light and movement that stands out so starkly Michael seems to experience it with more senses than he can name. 

Someone else on this lift not only isn’t covered completely to their wrists, the tops of their hands even, but - and Michael stares, disbelieving, when what he sees still doesn’t make sense to him - this person is actually wearing a tshirt. It’s black, like almost everything else in Michael’s line of sight, but it is short sleeved. It reveals toned, tanned biceps that taper down into a strong forearm, a finely boned wrist, and long fingers that are drumming out a beat against a denim clad thigh. 

Michael takes a longer gulp of his coffee, and decides that scalding his own tongue is the penance he must pay for such far-fetched fantasies. 

 

\---- 

 

Last year, Mikey worked for Hi or Hey Records as an unpaid intern for three months during the school holidays. 

Now, having finished high school for no reason other than his continued employment here resting on the qualification, Mikey has worked for Hi or Hey Records as a nominally paid intern for almost four months. 

He has been promised that after two more months of pretending to get people’s coffee orders wrong by mistake and getting called in to the studio at 2am to bring temperamental artists their preferred brand of blueberry vodka and going through mail getting increasingly irate about the impertinence of paper mail in this - the digital age, he will have earned his promotion to Junior Associate in whatever department he so chooses. 

Mikey had been thinking Production, or maybe Artist Management, though that’s the most competitive area. He hates what he’s doing now, and he hates those he must do it for, but that’s only because he’s close to what he wants and where he’s supposed to be, but not yet the way he should be. He resents that this place could be his playground, but for now remains his prison. 

The second time he catches a glimpse of his miraculous elevator mirage, he’s a tall, broad shouldered vision disappearing down a corridor Michael has never paid much attention to before. 

He’s wearing a tshirt again, dark grey this time, and his body is the only one framed in the space between dull walls that seem smaller still when they have to compete with the _wholeness_ of him, a reality that hits Michael hard and low, the sight of him striking hot right through him like an electric shock. 

Without a distracting cloud of dark, pressing bodies around him, Michael can see the one walking away from him clearly. 

Alongside miles of smooth, golden skin, Michael registers dark blond hair, tidily cut but styled to look unkempt, pushed this way and that as if by hands that Michael instantly envies. 

He’s taller than Michael, but not by much, though his legs seem to go on forever, thin in tight, tight denim. 

He has a guitar case slung across his shoulder and Michael catches a glimpse of silver rings when one hand reaches up and back to adjust the strap. 

Michael’s mystery vision disappears into a door marked ‘A&R’. 

Maybe it’s time Michael put more thought into which, of all the departments he might choose from, could most need and benefit from his more focused, more permanent attention. 

 

\----

 

Calum’s cooking when Michael gets home that night, so he either has a night off from practice, is just back from the gym, or is fueling up for an evening session out on the astroturf by the uni. 

When he’s not studying, in an admirably determined effort to keep his grades respectable, Cal is either playing soccer as he was invited here to do, or picking up in and around Michael’s bombshell of a life so as to make sure he stays alive and mostly well. 

Feeding Michael is a big, big part of this. 

“Lasagne’s in the oven,” Cal says over his shoulder from the sink when Michael comes in and Michael takes deep, satisfying lungfuls of the achingly satisfying smell of home-cooking as he drops his messenger bag by the couch and crosses the living room to hop up onto the counter across from Calum. 

“I have both good and bad news,” he announces, twisting a dishcloth in his hands because he always fidgets when he’s nervous or excited. 

“You’ve decided that I should drop out, you should quit and your label should sign us both as one half of a soon to be fully formed pop-punk-boyband-fusion, coming soon to a stadium near you,” Calum deadpans, because it’s a long time, oft mentioned joke in this house. 

“Well, eventually, obviously,” Michael says, because that’s the dream, “but more immediately and also more shockingly - my elevator daydream turns out to have been a real, human boy. Well. I can only assume he’s human, I haven’t seen his inner workings yet,” he adds with a leer, and Calum rounds it out with a raucous “eyyyy!” because he’s a good friend and a dependable lad. 

“That’s awesome, mate,” Calum enthuses, pulling on his oven mitts and bending over to grab the lasagne. It’s a true and heavy testament to the loveliness of Michael’s new crush that he doesn’t even feel compelled to try and cop a feel. “Did you ask him out?” 

Michael scoffs. 

“Cal, I haven’t even seen his face yet. Not that I really need to, given what I have seen, but point is - I haven’t so much as said ‘hello’ to him. I only found out he was real like, six hours ago.” 

“You told me I had nice nipples within an hour of us first meeting,” Calum points out and Michal scoffs again. 

“First of all - you were wearing a very thin tshirt, and your nipples are in fact nice. Second of all - this is different. I knew you’d either get my brand of weirdness and want to be my friend, or think I was a skeeve and run far away.” 

Calum seems to mull this over, humming to himself as he levels big heaps of lasagne out onto plates for them. 

“So why’s he different?” 

“Calum, you should see him. You should just stand in the same building as him and see how he stands out. I could _feel_ him in that lift. He’s so different to everyone there, everyone I’ve ever met, anyone I’ve ....” Michael trails off, because he means to say that Mystery Lift Boy is worlds apart from anyone else he’s ever dated, but the mere thought of getting to date Mystery Lift Boy - getting to simply stand next to him - makes him stop in his tracks. “I saw the whole incredible outline of him today and the insides of my thighs tingled like that waist - his waist - was where they belonged; where they were meant to be.” 

Michael carefully clambers down off the counter and grabs a fork, feeling light headed and knowing he should eat something and soon. 

“Jesus,” Calum says, low and awed as he follows Michael over to the couch and, 

“Exactly,” is all Michael can conclude as they tuck into their dinner. 

 

\----

 

Weeks passed between the first and second times Michael’s vision appeared to him, but he only has to wait two days before he is visited by this angel again. 

It’s a Thursday morning this time, and it’s been raining hard since Michael left home. Normally he likes mornings like these, because it seems fitting somehow to sit in his cubicle and watch the rain pound down on the windows like it wants to break them almost as much as Michael does. 

But today, he’s not having a good day and it has barely begun. 

Technically, Michael doesn’t have to check his emails when he’s off the clock, but he is expected to keep emergency emails set to alert him and the imbeciles he works alongside don’t seem to understand the meaning of the word ‘emergency’ or that it doesn’t pertain to getting him out of bed at 4 in the morning because they’re out in the world drunk off their arses on company money, under the guise of bringing in new artists, and are too wasted to remember their own passwords. 

And so Michael is tired and pissed off and the rain really isn’t helping things when it means that his phone slips out of his damp hand and clatters to the floor of the elevator, somewhere in amongst the stampede of perfectly polished shoes and instantly out of his sight. He’s so done with today already that he resigns himself to picking what will hopefully be his still intact phone up off the floor once everyone else clears out, when suddenly his phone is right in front of him, held aloft in a hand that, although as damp as Michael’s, makes the wet look work for it. 

“Hey um, here you go,” a voice says, and Michael shivers, not because of the cold. The rest of the lift is mostly silent, phone conversations murmured in a corner or two but everyone else scrolling or texting on their own phones, completely oblivious to everything going on around them. 

“Thank you,” Michael says on autopilot, and then promptly almost drops the phone again, because when he makes eye contact with the person who picked it up for him, he finds himself looking right into the face of his vision, Mystery Lift Boy himself standing before Michael in all of his considerable glory. 

Michael sees now that he was wrong to think of this boy as an angel of any kind, because there is nothing holy about the things Michael wants to do to that body, those hands, that mouth, that tongue. 

Mystery Lift Boy has wide blue eyes and the kind of bone structure that makes Michael very briefly understand the need for museums. He’s got a couple of days worth of stubble glinting in the light along his sharp, strong jawline and he’s nervously nibbling at a lip ring that sits on the side of a mouth that makes Michael see stars. 

“No problem,” he says, smiling then, and Michael has to try and be subtle about it when he grabs for the handrail. 

By the time it’s just the two of them left in the lift, Michael has mostly got his heart rate back under control, and that’s probably because he hasn’t given in to the urge to turn back around again once. 

“Uh, thanks again,” he manages to say, before they step off onto what Michael gets a thrill about thinking of as ‘their’ floor, and Mystery Lift Boy smiles again, tucking his hands into his pockets. 

“You’re very welcome,” he says, dipping into a little bow before he strides off in the opposite direction. 

Michael takes deep breaths the entire way to his desk and once there, calls Calum immediately. 

 

\----

 

Calum doesn’t answer, presumably because he’s still in bed where all the sane people are, but when he wakes up, it will be to a string of increasingly despairing texts. 

_oh no, he’s funny too_

_he picked up my phone for me and i wanted to faint to see if he’d catch me as well_

_o m g and i saw his face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

_does the expression “a face made to sit on” already exist because if not it should and also i should trademark it_

_fuck me he’s gorgeous_

_like. not just hot, although fuck me is he hot. like. beautiful? but not in a pretty way? although not not in a pretty way. just. like.. pure perfection. fuck_

_it’s v difficult to type with your head on your desk just fyi_

_i wonder what his surname is i wonder should i take it when we get married_

_.................. i don’t even know HIS FIRST NAME shit_

_i am so fucked_

 

\----

 

Calum sleeps almost enough to make up for the hours Michael’s insomnia eats away from him, so it’s no real surprise that when Michael gets a miraculous but much needed afternoon off, he comes home to find Calum still in bed. 

“Hey, you’re back early. And you didn’t reply to any of my texts,” Calum pouts when Michael climbs in next to him, fully clothed and about to fall asleep anyway, he’s so exhausted. 

“In my quarter life crisis I decided to turn my phone off,” Michael mumbles, and that’s half true at least. 

Calum fumbles under the covers until he can get at Michael’s pockets and find his phone, powering it back on as he holds it aloft above him. 

“You didn’t text Jack back, either,” Calum says, letting the statement hang in the air like a fish hook. 

Michael keeps his eyes closed. 

“I’m really not in the mood to see him,” is all he says. 

Jack is a very nice, very attractive dude that Calum and Mikey met at a show a few years back. After a truly disastrous attempt at dating, they’d fallen into some kind of friends with benefits type of thing whereby to different degrees of frequency at different times, they fuck. Between relationships, when they’ve got time, when they’re feeling particularly horny or lonely or whatever. Mostly, it works. 

But lately, Mikey hasn’t been feeling it so much. 

“You’re kind of messed up over this mystery dude, huh?” Calum asks, soft and quiet about it because they’re both loud, tactless idiots and that’s why they get along so well, but when the situation demands it, they can be gentle. 

“It’s dumb,” Michael says, and he knows it is. He’s spoken to this guy all of once. He doesn’t even know his name. And yet. “I just. He’s the only person I’m interested in at all, lately.” 

Calum hums and pushes his fingers up through the spikes at the back of Michael’s hair. 

“You should ask him out, then. Or just … get talking to him at least. It can’t be that hard, babe. I’ve never known you to be this shy, nothing and no one scares you, why should this one guy be any different?” 

Michael shrugs his shoulders as best he can while they’re pressed against the sheets. He thinks he should probably take his shoes off, at least, but he can’t for the life of him find the energy or motivation. 

“He just is, Cal. He’s … it’s not just that he’s the most attractive person I’ve ever seen in my entire life. There’s something about him, something else. He seems … important, somehow. I don’t even know him and I still know he’s a big deal.” 

Calum is Michael’s best friend, and he knows Michael better than anyone. They don’t keep secrets, and there’s nothing they can’t and don’t talk about. 

But Michael doesn’t know how to say what he’s feeling right now. He doesn’t know how to put into words his fear that Mystery Lift Boy is something he’s going to fuck up, somehow. He doesn’t know how to say that he’s already starting to very keenly feel the loss of him, because even though he doesn’t have him yet, Michael is sure to his bones that he’s not enough to get and _keep_ this boy. How could he possibly be? 

“You’re a big deal too, Mikey,” Calum says, and Michael can believe that he thinks so, at least. 

“Mmmmm,” Michael says, non-committal, and then he stays still and keeps his eyes closed until finally, he falls asleep. 

 

\----

 

After that, Michael has what probably constitutes the longest, most awful week of his entire life, not least of all because he doesn’t see Mystery Lift Boy once during that time. 

There’s work, there’s overtime, there’s the work that Michael fits in after all that, and then there’s the extra special overtime work that he completes instead of sleeping. 

When - miracle of all miracles - Michael gets a couple of days off, he spends the first one sleeping for eighteen hours straight. He’d keep right on sleeping were it not for: 

“Up! Up and at them!” Calum is yelling, and it is bright and it is loud and this is not the life Michael wants to be living, this is not the dream at all. 

“You’ve got four hours to do your hair and then fix your hair and fuss about your hair and then we’re going out,” Calum says, bouncing on the bed, but right down the end because he is a considerate soul after all. “A mate of mine’s mate’s band is playing downtown tonight and I got us put on the list. C’mon, I’m not letting you waste all of your youth and good looks on a job that’s trying to slowly kill you.” 

Michael rubs the sleep out of his eyes, squints at the time on his phone, and then squints at Calum. 

“Okay, but I have to drop by work first.” 

Calum rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t argue, so Michael counts it as a win and starts trying to think of something to wear. 

 

\--

 

In all of his time at the label combined, Michael has never had to run the gauntlet of the lifts at rush hour. 

It’s 5pm and normally Michael would still be at his desk or out running errands during this mass exodus of the building, but today he’s fighting through the throng to reach elevators that are empty as they ascend, and Michael doesn’t think about how this would be a perfect time to bump into Mystery Lift Boy, because Michael has been banned from thinking about Mystery Lift Boy at all, by Calum and by himself. 

It’s a quick thing, navigating the floor to get to his desk, grabbing the info packs that will be needed in the conference room first thing, and slapping them down next to water glasses, all in an effort to give himself fifteen extra minutes in bed in the morning. 

He’s in and out in under five minutes, but most of the masses seem to have dissipated by the time he’s leaving; the parking lot all but empty when he glances out the window on his way back to the lifts. He hasn’t run into any of his superiors, which he’s glad for, because his denim jacket isn’t long enough to cover up the skin his cut off tee leaves on show and the noticeable differences between his work jeans and these are about three sizes and some very sizeable if strategic rips.

In fact, he’s congratulating himself on a quick, efficient, consequence-free mission well executed when, standing waiting for the lift to come up, he hears it. 

Maybe he’s only heard him talk once, but Michael’s pretty sure he’d recognize that voice even if he’d never heard it at all. 

Somewhere not nearly far enough away, Mystery Lift Boy is _laughing_. 

It’s a low, honeyed thing that makes Michael shiver like his body is too small for him, because it’s a sound that shouldn’t be echoing around these walls; rumbling uselessly through an empty, unappreciative space. It’s a sound that should be hidden under the covers in Michael’s bed. It’s a sound he wants to feel vibrate against his skin; a sound he wants to taste with his own mouth. 

Michael closes his eyes against the soft roll of it and tries not to get lost in the thoughts it makes swim up inside him, washing over him in warm, curling waves as he folds his arms and waits for the lift with his shoulder pressed to the wall next to it. 

Footsteps approach and Michael’s heart beat gets rabbit fast, his pulse hammering in his ears so he barely hears it when Mystery Lift Boy says, 

“Oh, I. Hey,” from behind him. 

The lift doors open and Michael says a quick prayer of thanks to a god he doesn’t believe in. 

“Hi,” he manages, turning as he steps into the lift and managing a watery smile when he sees Mystery Lift Boy standing there without his guitar, without a jacket. He’s wearing a red flannel tshirt today and his hair is styled into a twisted little quiff and he’s wearing a necklace with a long chain and he’s smiling at Michael and standing right there. 

“Um. Have a good weekend?” Michael thinks to say, grasping at the straws of polite conversation and grateful that he did when Mystery Lift Boy’s smile widens and he steps forward, not getting on the lift, but looking kind of like he wishes he was. 

“Thanks, man. I’m trying,” he says, lifting a hand to put it to the back of his neck. He’s got dimples and they are deep. Michael clasps his own hands behind his back for support. “I’m actually going to a thing later, just down the street from here, it’s … maybe you might want to like … you should … you could come?” 

Michael steps forward, very very eager to continue this conversation even though he has no idea how he might manage to survive it when Mystery Lift Boy is looking at him and speaking to him and existing near him, but it’s too little too late because the lift dings then and the doors start to close. 

“It’s -” is all Michael hears before he has to step back to avoid death by elevator doors. 

“Shit,” he says to himself, because no one else can hear him now. Mystery Lift Boy has vanished from view, and the bottom drops out of Michael’s stomach when he thinks about the way Mystery Lift Boy’s face had fallen right before the doors closed. 

“Shit.” 

 

\----

 

Michael takes even longer than usual to do his hair that night, and he decides - ostensibly as a spur of the moment decision, but more realistically as a stress reaction - to colour it. He works in an office and he’s expected to look neat and tidy, but he also works in the music industry, and no one minds what colour his hair is once it’s clean and vaguely artful looking. 

It takes a while to bleach all the red out, but it had been fading fast, which helps, and Michael’s super happy with the lilac shade he chose to go this time. 

“It looks really, really good,” Calum confirms as he helps Michael style the back, as usual, and once Michael has seen to it that Calum’s hair looks as effortlessly tousled as always, they’re ready to go. 

“Who’s band is this, again? Are they any good?” Michael asks as they get closer to the bar, though he knows from the familiar faces milling around outside it that this is his scene, this is going to be a band he’s into. 

“You know Niall?” 

“Blond? Smiley? On the … golf team?”

“That’s the one,” Calum says, pausing to give their names to the guy on the door, who checks them off the list and waves them in, “Well, he’s mates with this guy Ashton, who drums in the band. I’ve tagged along to their practice sessions a couple times. They’re super new, but they’ve all played in different bands before, so Niall says they’ve got a great live sound and I like what I’ve heard so far. Besides; what else have we got on tonight?” 

“Nothing, absolutely nothing,” Michael says, heading straight for the bar and not thinking about what other plans he or anyone else might have had for tonight. 

 

\-- 

 

The first band on are alright; rough and awkward in a way that says they’re new to performing, but they have a solid sound and Michael can imagine seeing them again in a few months, thinks he’d really enjoy them then. 

He and Calum have had a couple of drinks each, and he’s just starting to feel loose with alcohol, with the dark, loud, messy press of home he finds in bars like this on nights like these. They’ve stopped to chat to a few people they’ve seen and known, but mostly it’s just the two of them hanging out by the left side of the stage, leaning companionably against one another in the sway and push of the crowd. 

It’s Michael’s turn to go to the bar, but when he turns to survey the clamour for the bar lady's attention, he is stopped in his tracks; his plans and thoughts and ability to breathe skitter to a complete halt. 

“Calum,” Michael says, not turning back to him, not taking his eyes from who he’s just spotted at the bar, “Calum,” he says again, very slowly and very steadily because otherwise he might start to shout. 

“What?” Calum asks, clearly and understandably confused by how his friend has become a monosyllabic statue right next to him, “What is it?” 

“Look at the bar. Look at the guy standing directly under the third light fixture from the door, next to the pillar. Tell me what he looks like to you.” 

Calum twists where he’s standing to peer obediently over Michael’s shoulder. 

“Hmmmm. He mostly looks like someone I’ve probably seen in porn before. Is he famous? Are we in the presence of someone that people pay to get to sleep with? Because I’m struggling to remember when payday is and how much my car is worth, all of a sudden.” 

Michael punches Calum in the arm, hard, without looking at him, but glaring nonetheless. 

“That’s my future husband you’re talking about, you dick. Have some fucking respect.” 

Calum giggles and wraps his arms around Michael’s waist in apology, hooking his chin up over his shoulder and pressing a smacking kiss to his cheek. 

“Steady on, mate. What about - oh. my. god. Is that Mystery Lift Boy? Is _that_ why you’ve been in such a state? Because fair enough, Mikey. Fair. Enough.” 

Of course, it’s at that exact moment - with Calum clinging to him like a limpet and both of them staring openly - that the adonis in question decides to turn away from the bar, drink in hand, and catch sight of the two of them. He makes eye contact with Michael and starts to smile, but then his gaze flickers to Calum, and the hand he lifts in a vague kind of wave ends up looking more like a question than anything else, his smile slipping. 

Michael doesn’t know what his face does in response, but it can’t be good, because Mystery Lift Boy only nods in a resigned sort of way and continues on his path to the complete opposite side of the room. 

“Fuck,” Michael says. 

“Fuck,” Calum agrees, although he makes it sound more like a suggestion than commiseration. 

 

\--

 

Niall shows up right before Ashton’s band goes on, and he and Calum and Michael get a few minutes to catch up before the lights go down. 

When they do, it’s even easier for Michael to see Mystery Lift Boy where he stands out; taller than the people he’s with, his hair golden where it catches the stage lights, his face wide open in beaming joy. Michael wants to push his way through the crowd to get to him, but he grabs for Calum’s hand and holds on, instead. 

Ashton’s band is great. Even without him, they’re one of the best new bands Michael has heard in ages, but his drumming is incredible and he’s so much fun to watch on stage: smiling wide and sharp as he drums, standing up from his kit and shouting along to parts he must think would benefit from gang vocals. They’re pop-punk with an emphasis on the pop part and leanings towards a more simple, classic rock vibe. They’re what Michael would want his band to sound like, if he were in one. 

Niall and Calum want to hang back and see Ashton after the show, naturally, and Michael is in no real hurry to get home because it’s early still and Mystery Lift Boy is here and Michael has had enough to drink that this seems like a thrilling opportunity rather than what it probably is in reality: a disaster waiting to happen. 

“Nialler! Caaaaaal!” Ashton shouts once he reappears from packing away his gear, throwing his arms around their shoulders and grinning sweatily. “And you must be the esteemed Mikey that I’ve heard so much about; thanks for coming, man, what did you think?” 

“You were awesome, mate,” Michael enthuses, always excited to talk to anyone who is enthusiastic about what they do, “Do you guys have any more shows coming up?” 

“Yeah! Tonight was kind of an end of an era type show, ‘cus our guitarist is leaving to move away for school, but we’ve already got someone new lined up and in a couple weeks we’re going out on tour with - oh hey, there’s our new guitarist now, actually, let me introduce you guys,” Ashton leans up onto his tip toes and takes his arms down off Niall and Calum’s shoulders to cup his hands around his mouth and shout. “LUKE. LUKE HEMMINGS. HEMMO! C’mere, I want you to meet my friends!”

“What are you talking about, you don’t have any friends besides me,” is what it sounds like the guy is grumbling as he approaches from somewhere off to Michael’s right. It’s still very loud in here, everyone’s ears ringing after the show, but it almost sounds like - 

The crowd parts, and Mystery Lift Boy - _Luke Hemmings_ \- appears right next to Michael. 

“Hey, what’s - oh. Oh. It’s you,” Luke says, completely ignoring everyone else in favour of staring at Michael instead. 

“Um. Hi. You’re - Hi. I’m Michael,” Michael says, and then there’s a warm hand in his and a smile on his face that’s mirroring the one he’s looking at. 

 

\-- 

 

After Niall makes the executive decision that they must all stop for food on the walk back home to their apartments - the one Luke shares with Ashton being close enough to Mikey and Calum’s, Niall’s dorm room only a short walk further - the group breaks off into a natural split with Niall swinging off of Cal and Ashton up front, already having eaten all of his own food and now begging for theirs, and Luke and Mikey hanging back, walking side by side as they eat. 

“So then it sort of became a more permanent thing. Only lately, and only for a while. It’s kind of boring, playing other people’s stuff, but they listen to me when I’ve got better ideas than theirs, and it pays the bills, you know?” 

“Sure, I think it’s really cool,” Michael says, nodding and trying not to trip over his feet, “Like, you’ve found a way to financially support yourself as you pursue music creatively by also playing music professionally. That’s fucking awesome, man.” 

“Hey, thanks,” Luke says, smiling shyly at Michael and then bumping shoulders with him when the look they share goes on a little too long. 

“So, um. You and Calum live together. Are you guys -” 

It takes Michael a minute to get what Luke is asking, an awkward pause that’s then shattered by Michael’s loud, utterly amused laugh when he figures it out. 

“Oh my god,” he says, truly delighted by the thought, “Do you mean are we banging? Oh fuck, that’s hilarious. No, definitely not. We’re best best best best friends, but he’s like my brother.” 

“Oh,” Luke says, blinking and not saying much of anything for a moment, until “Cool,” he decides. 

Michael coughs a little, his throat catching around the question he feels compelled to ask. 

“What about you? Are you and Ash?” 

“Ew, gross,” Luke says, wrinkling his nose, and it’s so adorable it makes Michael gasp. 

“It’s the same as you guys. Best friends, basically brothers, love that dude but nope, would not bang, would definitely recommend as the world’s best wing man.” 

“Oh yeah?” Michael asks, taking the remnants of Luke’s meal out of his hands and throwing it in the bin with his own, then looking ahead to where Ashton is fending Niall off with a waved fork. 

“Oh no, not for you,” Luke is quick to clarify, and Michael pretends to be offended, pout and all. 

“Awww, you don’t think I’m good enough to date your best friend? That hurts, Lucas, that hurts me right in my squishy places.” 

Luke frowns at him, huffing a frustrated little sound out through his nose and pushing his hands into his pockets like they’ve done something wrong. 

“It’s not that so much as it’s that it would be kind of awkward when I had to tell my best friend that I called dibs on his boyfriend before he did,” Luke shrugs, totally cool about this admission even though Michael feels like he just swallowed a rock. A small planet, maybe. 

“Like …” 

“I called dibs on you, I mean,” Luke clarifies unnecessarily, even though having him say it out loud is exactly what Michael was angling for. “Approximately fourteen months ago? So you can date Ashton if you want, but I’ll need like … three months to get it together enough to pretend I’m over it, and then like … the whole rest of my life to not be over it at all. If that works for you?” 

They’ve stopped walking, though Michael didn’t notice, and they’re standing facing one another now, Luke’s hands still in his pockets and Michael’s hanging uselessly by his side. He’s pretty sure his mouth is hanging open. He could be drooling. 

“No,” he says, decisive all of a sudden, because if Luke can be so straightforward about what he wants, even under the guise of humour, then fuck it, Michael can grow a pair of ovaries for a second, too. “No that definitely does not work for me.” 

“Oh,” Luke says, voice small and his gaze skittering away from Michael’s face, “That’s totally fine, I didn’t mean to make it weird, I just - I’m sorry, I -” 

“No, I mean. That doesn’t work for me because I don’t want to date Ashton. Or like … anyone else who isn’t you?” 

“Oh,” Luke says again, looking back at Michael so fast that he seems dazed, blinking at him with huge eyes, “So does that mean you do want to date someone who is me? Like. As in. Me specifically.” 

“This is all getting very very confusing,” is all Michael can conclude, but he’s brave right now and he can handle this; he imagines what he might say if he were talking to someone he was just a little bit into, someone who didn’t seem nearly as potentially life changing as Luke does and kind of always has. 

“Maybe it would be easier if we just kissed?” 

Luke’s eyes get even bigger and he bites at his lip ring but he’s nodding in a very very enthusiastic and encouraging way and saying “Yes, that would be, yes please, yes let’s -” 

And then Michael gets to watch Luke’s bottom lip fall free of his bite from right up close, and he gets to press his own mouth around it, reaching for Luke’s broad and lovely shoulders and holding on tight when Luke kisses back, his mouth soft for Michael in a way that says he’s trying very hard to contain himself, which is not at all what Michael wants, though he appreciates it nonetheless. He hopes as much is clear when he goes up on his toes to get as close as he possibly can to Luke, and lets his tongue slide up over Luke’s lip ring until Luke meets it with his own, his grip tightening where his hands are framing Michael’s hipbones. 

Michael’s hands are trembling a little bit against Luke’s flannel shirt, and his legs feel wobbly and new, his thighs tingling in zig zags of electricity just at the proximity to Luke and the exciting prospect of making their way home. 

“Oh stop it,” he tells them, accidentally out loud, and Luke glances down at him, alarmed. 

“No, not you, you should not ever stop anything you’re doing,” he says, running a reassuring and admiring and congratulatory thumb along his stubbled jawline, already thinking about getting his mouth there, “But my thighs keep yelling about how your waist is where they belong and it’s very distracting, I’ve got better things to be doing right now than policing my own thighs.” 

“I could help you, if you need a hand,” Luke says, smiling again, dipping a hand down into the front pocket of Michael’s jeans and tugging a little bit. 

Everything about him is charming. 

“Do you believe in fate, Luke Hemmings?” Michael finds himself asking, as they catch up with their friends, Luke’s hand in Michael’s back pocket now and Michael’s thighs still protesting their unfair distance from Luke’s body. Michael can relate. 

“No,” Luke says, shrugging, “But I’m a big believer of Newton’s First Law of Motion.” 

 

\----

 

It’s not raining the next morning when Michael makes his way towards the lifts, or maybe it is, maybe it’s snowing out there, but Michael doesn’t care because Luke is waiting for him by the lift doors and he’s smiling and he’s _gorgeous_. 

“Good morning,” Michael greets him, sunnier than he’s ever been at this hour of the morning in his whole entire life. 

“Hey, how’d you sleep?” Luke asks, as they step onto the elevator together and find room for themselves side by side at the back. 

“Alright, not so bad. My bed felt kind of weird, though. Like way too big? Almost like something was missing?” 

Luke rolls his eyes and grins, adjusting the strap of his guitar so it’s more secure across his shoulder and then dropping his hand to find Michael’s in the space between them and holding on. 

“Oh yeah? Maybe I should come over tonight and have a look? See if there’s anything I can do to fix that?” 

“That sounds perfect,” Michael says, “But it’s a kind of complicated problem. You might want to tell Ashton not to expect you home tonight?” 

“I’ve been telling Ashton that for just over a year now, just in case,” Luke confides, bending a bit to talk into Michael’s ear. 

“You, sir, are absurd, and I like you very very much,” Michael tells him, because it’s true, and because now he can. 

The elevator, already full, lurches into its ascent, and Michael’s heart leaps into his throat, and Luke’s grip on his hand goes tight. 

 

\----  
\----  
\----  
\----

**Author's Note:**

> Not true, not intended to offend, not profitable.


End file.
